9 September 2019: After a
successful Vector Tiles Pilot in 2018, the Open Geospatial
Consortium (OGC) invites developers to its Vector Tiles Pilot, Phase 2
(VTP-2)[1]. The goal of the
initiative is to help geospatial enterprises create custom maps for
seamless online/offline use. The Pilot will achieve this by
enhancing established OGC standards, and extending the latest OGC
APIs.

VTP-2 puts emphasis on providing a smooth
online-offline experience for users. In the ideal case, a user
working with vector map tiles experiences only minimal changes in
performance, display or interaction when transitioning from online
to offline situations. This will allow geospatial enterprises to
better support disaster response, humanitarian relief, and other
scenarios where network availability is limited to specific areas
or time periods.

To support these objectives, VTP-2 targets
several key work items: A simple metadata description for vector
tiles so users can share, find and use vector tiles online or
offline; a filtering language for OGC APIs and services, so users
can get just the vector map tiles they need; online/offline symbol
sharing so vector tiles can support easy-to-understand basemaps;
and...